David B.'s Guidelines to Technical Writing

Have you ever gotten a new T.V. or Video Game console, and could not figure out how to set it up? Have you ever looked in the box it came in and pulled out the instructions or just had your technical suave friend come over and do it for you? Well, anyways, I bet you then learned just how important these instruction booklets are. Now, have you ever gone through the same scenario, except you did read the instructions and still couldn't put together your new Christmas present? This would definitely be from poor instructions. Instructional writing must be very colloquial as to not render too much jargon. The people that write these books have guidelines, believe it or not, and it's dire they follow them to execute purchases to consumers and keep their product in the market. A few basic guidelines they follow are:

• Keeping technical jargon to a minimal
• using pictures if necessary to help explain
• Making sure steps are in precise order
• Giving instruction in appropriate languages
• Using a table of contents
• Using a glossary if necessary
• Writing instructions in the least amount of words possible without depleting importance.

These are just basic guidelines used to assist technical writing instructors, but there's no right way to give instructions as long as the instructions follow a basic form of organization and clearness.